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Bringing diversity to a diverse world.
Diversity Pictures LLC
Manifesto
To create a full fledge self contained Production Company that is run by business-minded artists. We will not be a company run by money driven, profit hungry stockbrokers, who force artists to rehash the status quo to maintain the bottom line. Instead we'll work smarter and be more creative on smaller budgets so that larger profits can be made and maintained from lower overheads.
To show the Beauty in Diversity, to bring Diverse Art to a Diverse World, to help Diversify the World one Motion Picture at a time.
To uplift the community, to speak for the meek, and contain the ambitious, because greed and fear are the enemies.
To inspire and encourage the dreamers because we are the ones who change the world.
To put the Art first and to preserve a Company that will choose good stories over quick hits. To make products whose artistic success equals its monetary success.
The Problem with the Studio System
Disclaimer: I have no problem, beef, or quarrel with Universal except that I believe King Kong 2006 by Peter Jackson was the worse green lighting decision ever made.
"King Kong" a story with a built in audience from the classic film adaptations, with an all star cast, and all star director shot, for approx' $207 million budget according to IMDB, made $214 Million Theatrically in five months.
"Madea's Family Reunion" a story with a built in audience from fans of the play, and from the other Madea movie, it had a known cast, a known director, it was shot for approx' $6 Million according to IMDB, and made $63 Million in just three months.
The original Saw, a great ORIGINAL story, with a known cast, and unknown director; was shot for approx' $1.2 Million according to IMDB, and made $55 Million in just three months.
Diversity Pictures LLC philosophy would be to use the money of Universal (if it had it) the distributor of "King Kong" like Lions Gate, the distributor of "Saw" and "Madea"s Family Reunion."
Think about it, for 200 hundred million we could make 40 films at 5 million dollars each. If the stories are good and original, then with the help of some known actors we could make 2.3 Billion dollars if we enjoy the success of "Madea's Family Reunion" and "Saw".
The idea is to make good films at a low cost and make way more money doing it over the same period of time instead of going for the big summer blockbuster and risk only making 7 million in a year after investing 200 million.
True Blockbuster Profits comes from huge ticket sales at low cost not huge ticket sales and slightly smaller cost. Breaking even is a necessary evil when doing business; breaking even is even harder when you spend 200 million dollars on a story everybody already knows.
The only hope that King Kong had to double it's investment (which are the founding principals of business) would be if the special effects made the movie a must see. The only way to make a special effects based movie with a well known story (no matter how well liked) this successful, would be to shoot with an enormous budget.
I propose to spend less money on a new story and you need less people to like it or see it to make big profit, the risk of failure is smaller on lower budget films with a good story as its draw.
Traditional CEO can always say things like you never know what a good story really is, there's a reason CEOs don't know what a good story is. They're not artist, a good story is a story good enough to bring everybody to the theatre; even though the film has no stars or special effects. This is done with low budgets, good execution and word of mouth. Traditional CEOs are the reason people are not going to the theatre any more; people are tired of the same old thing. The success of Reality TV can attest to that.
Isn't it amazing when a film that cost under 20 million makes over 100 million, records indicate that 500 million is a ceiling in theatrical distribution. If ticket prices don't change based on the price of the production budget why not make films for less and hope that they are so good that everyone will see it. If the film falls short of the 500 million ceiling, which records indicate they all do, it won't matter.
If Universal shoots a major blockbuster for 200 hundred million and makes 500 million in a year or two because the special effects are a must see, and the marketing campaign is so good; that despite telling us a story we already know, people still pour out to see the film, then they have done a good job, and deserve all the success it brings.
However, we could spend 20 Million or less on a story driven project, and let word of mouth; the best known marketing tool to date, replace the huge marketing campaign, keep our over head down so that if no one sees the film will still breakeven, since this is a story driven project if the story is good enough our film becomes a must see film too. Then we can also make 500 million in that same year or two. Now what company turned the bigger profit? The company who spent 200 Million and made 500 Million or the company who spent 20 Million or less and made 500 Million.
Without Universal's money we need to start small and expand slow and never become too big or go public, or we'll be forced to deal with Non-Artist decision makers and board members. We could still raise 6 million per film make 60 million in the theatre and since we have to distribute through major studioes, (because theatrical distribution is too expensive to do it completely independently), we would still make at great profits.
We continue to do this, the next thing we know, over time we will have enough money to distribute films theatrical ourselves, but since we still make low budget films we can enjoy even higher profits.
Diversifying the world one motion picture at a time.
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